SPONSOR: Oregon Department of Transportation

BUDGET: $131,000

ABSTRACT: In the United States, intersection crashes accounted for 45% of all crashes and 21% of fatal crashes in 2003 (FHWA). For the period of 2000-2005, the trends in Oregon are similar - approximately 40% of all reported crashes occurred at or near intersections. These crashes accounted for 44% of all injuries and 17% of fatalities. In many highway safety improvement programs, intersections are one of the key focus areas because of this concentration of severity and frequency of crashes. Intersections in need of safety improvements are typically identified through network screening techniques. The most appealing procedures attempt to identify sites with the most "promise" for improvement since engineering studies are expensive, agencies have limited budgets, and if a site with potential is not identified, an opportunity to substantially improve safety is missed (Hauer, 2002). Typically, the sites with most promise have safety performance for a particular crash type that deviate from some average characteristic. There are number of techniques by which to define average, but it is clear that having knowledge of the expected safety performance based on existing conditions, crash history, and other factors is helpful to both identify problem areas in network screening and once a location is identified, to diagnosis the correctable safety problem. While there is a large body of work related to intersection safety, it is still currently a challenge for many jurisdictions to define expected performance. The primary objective of this research is to quantify the safety performance at a range of typical intersections in various geometrical and operational categories (rural, urban, suburban, volumes, configuration, traffic control, geography). The research will result in an improved method for identifying safety improvements at intersections, help optimize investment of safety dollars, and allow comparisons between sites thereby aiding decision-makers.